ANCIENT ANGLING AUTHORS 187 



among the Alps. These they tell make a fine and 

 exceeding strong Hair or Line, resembling a single 

 Hair which is drawn from the bowels of the Silk 

 Worms, the glutinous substance of which is such, 

 that like the Cats Gut which makes strings for the 

 Viol and Violin, of an unaccountable strength, so 

 this will be so strong, as nothing of so small a Size 

 can equal it in Nature ; for it is rather smaller than 

 the single Hair ordinarily used in Fishing, and strong 

 as the cat gut itself; so that with these lines they 

 secure the strongest Fish in those Rivers, where they 

 have some Trout also very large as well as other Fish. 

 I have seen an imitation of these Worm Gut Lines 

 in England, and indifferent strong too, but not like 

 that I have mentioned in Italy ; yet these will hold 

 a Fish of a good size too ; if he is not too violent, and 

 does not too nimbly harness herself among Weeds 

 and Roots of Trees, where she cannot be pulled out. 



The Compleat Fisherman is an original and a 

 very practical work ; the instructions on fly-fishing, 

 however, are very scanty. 



The following method of poaching, described in 

 this book, is fortunately now obsolete : 



In Devonshire I have observ'd how they fish with 

 a Dog 5 a way I have never met with anywhere else, 

 but it is in one particular Case, which is thus, they 

 make Pallisadoes and cross Stakes at the Tail of a 

 Mill, the cross Pieces are set pointing inwards like a 

 Mouse Trap to one another, and the Points so close 

 together, that when the Tide comes up, the Fish slide 

 insensibly between the Points, but cannot find their 

 way out again when the Tide ebbs again ; so that 

 they are left in the Dock of the Mill Tail, where the 

 Sides being walled or wharft with Stone, and the Mill 

 shut down at the higher End, the cross Rails standing 



